The Speech

It’s funny that some pundits – including those who criticize Obama for being too lofty and rhetorical – are criticizing this speech for being too red-meat, not inspiring enough.

It inspired me. From start to finish, it ebbed and flowed, Obama would rise up and get righteously angry and then shrink back down to earth, only to crescendo again.

And he attacked, and made a case for good government. Some folks are comparing Obama to Lincoln and to Kennedy. Those comparisons are apt, but I’m seeing a 21st-century FDR – a man uniquely suited to our times. Andrew Sullivan:

<blockquote>Above all, he took on national security - face on, full-throttle, enraged, as we should all be, at how disastrously American power has been handled these past eight years. He owned this issue in a way that no Democrat has owned it since Kennedy. That’s a transformative event.</blockquote>

I’ve heard about change a lot this year, but this was the first time I truly saw what we are on the brink of – a true break from the past but a reclaiming of everything that could and should be good about this country.